A ‘poll tax’ by another name is just as unjust | Editorial

Desmond Meade (second from left) is a leader of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, which hopes to raise $3 million to help felons pay court fees and fines to avoid being blocked by Florida’s new “poll tax.” Four lawsuits have surfaced challenging the law’s constitutionality on the grounds that it makes voting subject to ability to pay. The issue belongs in court. No legislative action should go unchecked that affects voting rights. (Sarah Espedido / Orlando Sentinel)

Any desire on DeSantis’ part to tiptoe around this raging controversy was soon dashed. His signature was barely dry when the first of four lawsuits surfaced, challenging the law’s constitutionality on the grounds that it makes voting subject to ability to pay.

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The issue belongs in court. No legislative action should go unchecked that affects voting rights. The stakes are too high and Tallahassee history is fraught with political motives.

The cases were consolidated and assigned to U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee. He has repeatedly ruled against the state in election law cases, including his dismantling of a “fatally flawed” pre-Amendment 4 restoration of rights system last year and his separate finding that the state discriminated against college students by blocking early voting on campuses. The tenacious and fearless Walker will act in Floridians’ best interests.

Defendants include DeSantis’ chief elections officer, Secretary of State Laurel Lee, and 10 county election supervisors including Pete Antonacci in Broward, Christina White in Miami-Dade, and Bill Cowles in Orange County, where people with felony convictions, acting in good faith, have registered to vote since Jan. 8 when Amendment 4 took effect. Only later, some said, did they learn they still owe fees, fines or victim restitution. (SB 7066 included a grace period for people who registered without knowing, but it expired on July 1, another arbitrary factor subject to challenge.)

More than 5 million people overwhelmingly approved Amendment 4 last November, a decision both resounding and historic that shattered the lifelong disenfranchisement of an estimated 1.4 million people, far more than any other state. The system dates to 1868, when it was used to prevent African-Americans from voting. But even after voters rendered their verdict last fall, the path to citizenship for felons faced one final, massive obstacle: the legislature.

As presented to voters, Amendment 4 would restore voting rights to most felons “after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation.” In the 2019 session, the Legislature defined “all terms” to include all fees, fines and costs imposed as part of a sentence.

Republicans cite the words of Jon Mills of the University of Florida law school, who argued on behalf of Amendment 4 supporters when the ballot language was approved by the state Supreme Court last year. Mills told justices: “All terms means all terms.” As House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, told the News Service of Florida: “Voters voted to give felons a second chance, but they didn’t vote to give them a free pass from accountability and payment of debt to society."

But the result, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, League of Women Voters, Florida State Conference of the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center and others, makes voting subject to the ability to pay, which is unjust on its face. A felon who can pay a fine can vote, but a felon who can’t will remain disenfranchised because of money, creating two classes. Paying debts is made more difficult because a conviction in Florida is a barrier to employment. No wonder critics of the law call it “a poll tax.”

Consider the case of Bonnie Raysor, 58, of Boynton Beach, a plaintiff in one lawsuit. After serving an 18-month sentence for drug-related crimes, she has unpaid fines and fees of $4,260. Released from prison in 2011, she earns $13 an hour as an office manager and can afford to pay only $30 a month, which means it will take her 12 years to pay off the debt, according to her suit. Raysor also has a teenage daughter in college and $48,000 in student loan debt.

The ACLU and others cite a line of cases to support the argument that financial requirements violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment’s ban on a poll tax. Quoting a 1966 Supreme Court decision that struck down Virginia’s poll tax, the ACLU argues that a state “violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard.”

The amount of unpaid fines and fees owed by felons is staggering. It totals more than $1 billion in South Florida alone, the Sun Sentinel has reported. Plaintiffs argue that Florida lacks accurate and centralized data legal financial obligations, and that uncertainty likely has a chilling effect on registering. In this morass, groups signing up new voters say they can’t be sure whether registrants have met “all terms." There’s a lot to sort out, and the deadline to register for the March presidential preference primary is only eight months away.

This challenge to SB 7066 marks at least the eighth time in recent years that a legal challenge to state voting laws is before a federal court. Some may find this trend troubling, but we find it reassuring that the fate of Floridians’ basic constitutional rights must survive intense legal scrutiny.

Editorials are the opinion of the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board and written by one of its members or a designee. The Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Rosemary O’Hara, Sergio Bustos, Steve Bousquet and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson.